Marcia
I specialize in working on your dog's mindset to ensure that your dog is calm and relaxed before we start any actual training. I believe that building a positive and trusting relationship with your dog leads to mutual respect and understanding which is the foundation of successful behavior modification.
Once your dog is calm, we can work on trust and building house manners, such as not jumping on people, no reactivity around other dogs or distractions, how to relax and calm down and self management of fear and excitement.
While I do work on basic skills such as sit, stay and come when called, I work on making these skills a learned behavior, so instead of your dog waiting for a command, they will learn to naturally express those behaviors, such as sit at the door before going outside.
The method I use is rooted in a very simple communication technique which is based on "pressure". There are two types of pressure that I use. The first type of pressure is called direct pressure, which is anything that is touching your dog, such as a leash or my hands. I use a lot of "intentional touch" such as calm massage and touch to help teach commands to begin off leash work.
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The second type of pressure is using your natural body language and energy. These are things like moving into your dog's space to teach him to respect your space (no jumping) and to stay in a command such as "place". Using your energy includes being calm, staying confident and being a great leader for your dog.
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I love this work and I have been very fortunate to have some great teachers and mentors such as:
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I am semi-retired now and have the luxury of taking in one dog at a time for training. This allows me the time to spend a lot of one-on-one time with your dog, and to focus on your dog's behavior and manners. ​​
